


Your Mind Is Full of Red

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Femdom, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pegging, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Strap-Ons, Subspace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:08:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15732852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: It turns out that if you look up the actual meaning of 'star-crossed lovers', it's defined as 'a couple doomed to end in tragedy'.The definition gets a little bit loose if one person is too stubborn to settle for that and the other skipped that day in Shakespeare class to play laser tag and drink PBR on a roof.Or; a collection of one-shots of my deputy and Jacob.





	1. Inkstain (Soulmate AU)

**Author's Note:**

> so i decided for organizational purposes, i wanted to have a place to have all of my jacob/cody fics that weren't connected to other fics i'm writing. some of these are tumblr prompts and some of them are just done for fun. either way, they're all in one place and i'm psyched. :D a few of these will be NSFW and appropriately marked with warnings. 
> 
> aaaaand fic title comes from jefferson airplane's 'somebody to love'.

For the few months that Jacob Seed actually remembers his family owning a TV, he notices a few things. 

He’s about six years old, leaning up against his mother’s legs while she patches the elbow on one of his father’s work jackets (she’s always,  _always_  patching things; they never buy anything new). Joseph is sitting on the floor beside the TV set, playing with a worn down wooden horse toy that they bought at a garage sale, and he babbles to it in his own language that is half English and half two-going-on-three year old chatter. Their father is out working late again, which means they have a few hours to watch whatever they want, rather than the loud televangelists that he likes.

On the screen, in shivering monochrome, a greaser bobs his way into a diner, smirking at a young lady in a poodle skirt leaning up against a jukebox. He says, “Hey, sweetcheeks. You got a name to go with that pretty face?” 

The girl rolls her eyes and the audience laughs. Jacob doesn’t get it.

“Martha,” the girl finally drawls.

“What a coinky-dink!” says the greaser. He shoulders off his leather jacket and rolls up a shirt sleeve, revealing an entire list of names on his right arm.  _Soulmarks,_  Jacob knows. He knows them from TV and from what Pastor Jim talks about at church sometimes. He doesn’t really  _know_  what they are, except some way to find out who you’re going to marry. But he does know that they show up different on everyone. Names are common. His mother has a name on her ankle, and it isn’t his father’s.

On the screen, the greaser runs a finger over his arm before he settles on a name. “Gee, Martha! Guess you n’ me are just meant to be together!” he exclaims, all but shoving his arm in her face.

Martha looks at him with thinly-veiled disgust before reaching over and dumping a glass bottle of Coke on his arm. Then, she reaches up while the greaser is stunned and the audience is howling in laughter, and she uses her shirt sleeve to wipe the names off his arm until they’re just an inky mess. 

“Nice try,” she says levelly before turning on heel and walking out the door to the audience whooping and laughing. 

Jacob sits in slack-jawed awe while Joseph chirps out something that sounds like, “ _Pecan!”_ which Jacob thinks is the name of the horse. Then, Jacob leans back against his mother’s legs, tilting his head up so she looks upside-down in his vision. “Mama, can you wipe soulmarks off?” he asks.

His mother gives him an upside-down smile and shakes her head. “No, baby. They don’t come off. He was just bein’ silly.”

“Oh.” Jacob tilts his head back down as a commercial comes on for Oscar Mayer bologna. He looks to his right, seeing the last few letters of his mother’s soulmate’s name peeking up above her sock. All he sees is - _EY_ in weird writing. He looks down at himself, at his shorts and bare knees and tube socks with two neat red lines near the top. Then, he looks down at his hands, his wrists, and even his elbows. “How come I don’t have one?” he finally asks.

His mother laughs, and Jacob’s too young to realize that it’s one of the rarest sounds in the world. She reaches down and runs a hand over his hair, red like his dad’s. “You will soon, baby. Sometimes it takes a little while.”

He’s also too young to realize that some people never get them.

\- - -

They switch churches when Jacob’s just shy of ten years old. His skin is still bare of anything like a soulmark, although he has enough freckles, scars, and bruises to last him a lifetime. 

His dad doesn’t like Pastor Jim’s preaching anymore, and Jacob’s aware that they had some kind of argument about the way his dad treats his mom. His dad swears that it’s because God isn’t in Pastor Jim’s preaching, so they end up going to a Baptist church that’s built so close to the Coosa River that it looks like it’s going to fall right in. It’s the kind of church that has something called a  _revival_  every few weekends, where they set up a big white tent near the river and dunk people in the water while yelling about Jesus and John the Baptist for a few hours. Jacob was baptized a while ago, but he still watches in stunned silence when their new pastor, Pastor Richard, hollers and waves his arm like a ghost in a madhouse before dunking old ladies and young guys and a whole gaggle of little kids.

And Pastor Richard has a  _lot_  to say about soulmarks.

He smacks the Bible a lot when he talks, and goes on for ages about how only a man and a woman can marry over soulmarks, or how soulmarks were made on Adam’s skin from the dirt he slept in while God took his rib to make Eve. During one sermon, someone quietly mentions something about having multiple marks, and Pastor Richard goes on such a screaming tangent that Joseph starts to whimper in his mother’s arms. There’s no such  _thing_  as multiple, he snarls. That’s not how God’s love  _works_.

Jacob looks down at his own skin again, peeking out under the sweat-soaked white button-up shirt his dad makes him wear every Sunday. He sees freckles on his wrists, a few little bruises, and not much else.

He almost wants to ask about people who don’t have marks, but he’s afraid of Pastor Richard shouting at him, too. 

\- - -

The next few years make it hard to think about soulmarks or much of anything except how to keep himself and his brothers alive.  
  
Lots of things happen in a blur; his dad getting taken away in a patrol car, his mom taken in the other direction in an ambulance while she stares at nothing, and then the ugly black Cadillac that comes to take them away in a third direction. There are stark white offices, bunk beds in rooms that smell like fresh paint and sawdust, stacks of papers that Jacob has to sign sometimes in his unsteady handwriting, and what feels like hundreds of people with faces that Jacob is never going to remember, all pretending to be sad on his behalf.

He holds John through most of it, trying not to think too hard about his parents or the life they left behind. John’s still too young to really understand the gravity of what’s happening to them, and what _will_ happen. The ladies in the offices give him coloring books with cartoon characters and John just smiles and sings to himself and gleefully colors outside the lines while people whisper about abuse charges over the water cooler in the corner. Only once does John ask about their parents, and all Jacob has to say is that they went away and won’t be back for a long time. John doesn’t ask again.  
  
Sometimes Jacob thinks about the name on his mom’s ankle, or the tattoo-like splotch on the back of his dad’s left wrist, or how the two of them were never meant to be together. He understands now that they got married out of necessity, because his mother and father both came from poor families and could hardly support themselves. It happens often, and most people are fairly happy with the person they settle on. _Most_ , because Jacob believes his parents never loved each other.

Sometimes, he thinks if he doesn’t have a mark, then–

He stops himself there, because otherwise, he just gets himself upset. He can’t do that in front of his brothers when they need him the most.

Then, they get adopted by the farmer couple in Rome, and before Jacob knows it, he doesn’t have time to think about soulmates and marks at all. 

\- - - 

He’s in juvie when he gets something like a mark. Maybe. 

It’s one of the younger kids, Toby or Tony or something, with the long Italian last name, born with two fingers on his right hand fused together. He follows Jacob around like a lost puppy, along with a few other kids who quickly learn that Jacob Seed punches like a fucking  _boxer_ when one of the older kids picks on one of the younger. Toby-or-Tony was one of those kids, after one of the older guys (colloquially known as Forevers, since everyone knows that once they’re out of juvie, they’ll just boomerang right back into prison) gets a few of his buddies started on calling him Lobster Boy. He shoves Toby-or-Tony up against the chain-link fence at the courtyard and makes a big show of seemingly trying to peel his fingers apart, when Jacob (known for his soft voice, massive height, and the fact that he stares people down like a goddamn wolf on the prowl) stalks up behind him and socks the shit out of the guy’s jaw. Once the he’s on the ground, bleeding out of the mouth and mewling like a kitten, Jacob saunters away without a word and Toby-or-Tony follows him like he’s magnetized.

And he’s the one who notices the weird mark on Jacob’s hand first. It’s a splotch of blue-black in near the tip of his left middle finger, and Toby-or-Tony points at out at lunch one afternoon while Jacob prods at a Salisbury steak which would probably be better suited as a hockey puck then an edible item. Toby-or-Tony watches his hand move before he clears his throat.

“Uh. Jake. You got a little somethin’ on yer…” He makes a throwaway motion towards his hand.

Jacob curls his hand inward enough to see, and furrows his brow at the weird little mark, not quite a quarter of an inch long. It looks like an ink stain, but the last time he touched a pen was in the social worker’s office almost five weeks ago. They only let the kids have pencils in school.

“Huh,” is all he says. He takes the moist towelette they give out with the lunches and tries to wipe it off. It stays in place, not blurred or faded in the least. He blinks at it, then down at the towelette which is as clean as it was when he took it out of the package.

Toby-or-Tony gives him a lopsided grin. “You get a tattoo from Kev or what?” he asks, referring to Kevin-in-the-bathroom, who gives kids tattoos using ink from a broken pen and a fork he stole from the cafeteria ages ago. 

“Fuck no,” Jacob replies gruffly, shoving the towelette aside. “I’m not that stupid.” And it’s forgotten in the course of him trying to saw the steak in half, failing, and then flipping it onto Toby-or-Tony’s plate, who retches a little at the sight of the alarmingly gray gravy trail it leaves behind.

It’s forgotten, for a little while, until Jacob stands in the showers and looks down at it again. It might be a trick of the waxy light in the bathroom, but he swears it’s gotten bigger. 

\- - -

When he starts BCT at Fort Benning, Jacob sees the marks on his knees. They’re the size of half dollars, plastered in blue-black on his skin like he just slid through an oil slick. They’re nearly identical, too, and he stares at them in confusion and something like awe in that split second of time he has before he has to get back in uniform. He knows better than to waste valuable shower time.

It’s on his mind for only an hour or so before the drill sergeant is screaming in his ear through drills.

Jacob usually only ever has two things on his mind at that point. He still thinks about his brothers, about how the last time he saw them, Joseph was a wiry-looking preteen with owlish eyes and a healing broken nose, and John was  _crying_ , clinging onto Joseph’s hand with his big blue eyes so full of tears that he had to blink a dozen times just to see Jacob clearly as the police pulled them all apart. He remembers how John kept one of his shirts like a security blanket, keeping the black fabric draped over one arm or clasped against his chest while he slept. Then, Jacob realizes that the more he thinks about that, the more it hurts.  
  
But it hurts more to try to forget them at all.

The other thing he thinks about is his future, which rocks back and forth precariously between promising and doomed. Linda, his social worker back in Macon, bluntly told him that his outlook was either prison or the army, but cited his fantastic test scores as a potential for college. He remembers her manicured nails, painfully pink against the black desk, and how she clicked them, one-two-three-four against the fake wood surface.

“You get into the army, and then college is pretty well paid for,” she had said with a shrug, glancing at the paper with his GPA from the center. He knew it without having to see it, staring with a three and ending with a high number that nearly tipped the scale into 4.0. “You ever think about getting a degree?”

He hadn’t. He said as much, followed by, “If I did, could I get custody of my brothers?”

She had shrugged, and it made his heart sink. “Maybe. Maybe not. Most likely not,” she said. “They might be adopted out by now, and even if you did get a degree, there are a lot of other factors that the state would consider. It’s a complicated process even without you being incarcerated.”

And that’s what kicked off his second dwelling point, where he wavered between optimistically thinking about his years of service, a college degree, and the potential of not only seeing his brothers again, but having custody, or ending up dead in a gutter somewhere, or possibly prison.

But a third point hardly occurred to him until the stains appeared on his knees, as stark as tattoos. 

He sees them again when he goes in to shower after drills, and all he can think of is that TV show and the names on the greaser’s arms, followed by his mother saying  _sometimes it takes a little while_.

And sometimes not to people like him, with no future and no prospects, he had thought.

His mind keeps playing the show and his mother’s words, but the rational part of him, the one that speaks in a voice an awful lot like Linda, says that they’re just bruises. 

It’s harder to forget this time, though.

\- - -

Once again, things are a blur. A  _big_  one, kicked off mercifully by huge doses of pain medication given through syringes in hep-locks and intravenous tubes. 

Jacob’s only vaguely aware of what’s going on, trying to piece it all together as he rolls in and out of consciousness like a ship on the waves. He remembers a black expanse of desert in the darkness, then shouting, then a high whistle of something airborne and travelling at high speeds, and then– 

Pain. 

White-hot and cracking and oozing. 

All over his body.

He sees flashes of white, and people behind masks. He sees someone he knows is a surgeon, and then they’re gone. He feels things touching him, more poking and prodding, the smell of something so antiseptic that it stings to breathe it in, and the endless drone of voices in multiple languages, mixing together so it sounds like Joseph’s made-up language from childhood.

Shit, he hasn’t thought about Joseph in a while. 

He doesn’t have time to think much of anything else before he dips under again, and his head is full of strange dreams of little kids sleeping on bales of hay, but then the bales turn to sawdust-smelling bunk beds, and then they’re shoved up against chain-link fences. He dreams of blue-black bruises on his knees, and as he comes back up to the surface of consciousness for a second, smelling sickly-sweet medicine and hearing the distinct beep of an EKG, he has one rogue thought that breaks rank and hauls ass in another direction.

 _Sorry,_  he thinks, directing at someone far away. Someone he’s never seen, but in this twilight-phase of sleep and waking, he knows is there.  _You don’t need this on you. You don’t need to see this._

It doesn’t make sense, and, hell, he isn’t even sure what it means. All he knows is that at some point, his entire body feels like it’s bandaged, and he’s sure he looks like an old Hollywood mummy plastered to a stretcher. 

At some point, he thinks he hears someone say, “Second and third degree burns over sixty percent–”, but he might also dream that.

And yet, all he can think still is,  _Sorry, sorry, sorry._

\- - -

He tastes something charred in his mouth as he walks, and his head feels unscrewed from his body, like the bulb of a flashlight not quite screwed in all the way. Here and there, it flickers–  _He_  flickers, not quite here, not quite gone. He staggers through the desert on a leg that’s not right, with a ghost trailing behind him, and his head is just–

He’s laughing. He’s fucking  _laughing_ , and the sound carries loud and clear over the mountains and the sand and the thin ground cover that promises water that isn’t there. He’s choking on the sound, and when he looks down at his left arm, sleeve torn away to make a bandage for 

( _for Miller, but God knows he doesn’t need it now_ )

someone, he sees a long lance of ink-blue trailing down his arm in a dark stripe. He nearly loses it then, the laughter breaking like glass in his throat.

“God, I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” his voice cracks, riddled here and there with splits and crevasses. He grins in a rictus smile, muscles yanked back so that it feels like he has no control over his face. He smiles like

( _like that corpse you left behind, you sick fuck_ )

a skeleton, and he shivers so hard that it’s a wonder his bones are holding together at all. 

He runs his hand down that mark, and up, and down. Over and over until his calloused hand feels as abrasive as sandpaper on his skin. He’s trying to wipe the mark away–

( _“No, baby. They don’t come off. He was just bein’ silly.”_ )

It doesn’t come off. He rubs and rubs until his skin turns red around the blue.  
  
He laughs.  
  
He screams.  
  
He screams and screams and screams.

(Until the Humvee comes after a report from a lookout at a mountain outpost, drawing full alert to the fact that there’s a man in US Army fatigues staggering like a drunk across the desert. And then they pick him up, delirious to the point that he’s laughing in dry heaves of sound, clearly malnourished, vomiting the second they give him water, and chattering madly about ghosts and brothers and someone that he can’t stop apologizing to.)

\- - -

Whoever said, ‘All roads lead to Rome,’ needs a solid kick in the jewels, no matter how long they’ve been dead. (He knows it’s from the  _Golden Milestone._  He’s read it, among five hundred other things to occupy his time in the dingy little apartment the Army saw fit to gift him with after an  _honorable_  discharge. Fuck them.)

The road’s led him from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to a miserable walk-up on Beecher Street to hitchhiking across half of Georgia to avoid Rome, and finally from I-16 to I-75 to 411 and straight back into that goddamn hornet’s nest of memory that Rome is.

In the end, the road back to Rome has taken him to the optimistically-named Hope Rebuilding shelter where he sleeps on an Army cot (God, he can’t even get away from  _that_ ) while listening to the droning buzz of fluorescent lights above his head and the insistent cough of a woman dying of emphysema on the other side of the room. There are plenty of other wayward veterans here, all with glassy eyes and too-long beards (at least his is still red and not ash-gray or bone-white) and the occasional pension check that floats in to provide for cigarettes or the contraband bottle of Wild Turkey. 

Jacob resigns himself to his cot, to the olive drab duffel bag that he lives out of with the handful of books he kept from the Beecher Street apartment and a few essentials. The rest, he doesn’t care about. He’s sure he’s going to die here, the same way people do all the time. One day, one of the sweet old ladies of Hope Rebuilding will come over to wake him and find him stone-cold and grinning like he did in the desert, and then maybe they’ll weep a little before calling the ambulance company and funeral home that they have on speed dial. He’s oddly content with that now.

The only other thing keeping him afloat is the person on the other side of those blue marks that ripple onto his skin sometimes. He knows that they’re soulmarks, but he also knows that he’s never going to meet that person, and that it’s for the better that he doesn’t. He’s left them scarred, he’s sure, if the marks are what he imagines. Every time one of them gets hurt, the mark appears on the other person. It’s somehow suitable, in the way that the marks are supposed to be. He knows his soulmate is accident prone but not in any real danger. They get scrapes or bruises all the time, and when he allows himself to let his mind wander, he imagines that they might play some kind of high contact sport, especially when he gets a blue mark on his right shin in the shape of a leg guard.

Sometimes, when his head is unscrewed again and he’s seeing corpses smiling at him when he closes his eyes, he brings his left forearm up to his face and presses his lips against the skin. There’s a thin sky-blue line there, a scar left over from the day when it was a cobalt-colored stripe. After he kisses it, he apologizes again.

He’s sorry that he did this to them, probably making them look like they’ve been drenched in ink.

He’s sorry that they had to watch that happen, and it’s only a little comforting to think that someone out there worried about him.

He’s sorry that they’ll never meet, and he’s sorry that he’s alright with that.

“I wish you could wipe them off,” he says to the scar one night when Sharon-with-emphysema hacks and wheezes and one of the old Vietnam guys groans and yells in his sleep. Jacob whispers, “I wish you didn’t get stuck with me. I’m sorry.”

His isn’t one of the soulbonds where he feels the things his soulmate feels. But for a moment, he thinks he feels them respond.

_It’s okay. We’re okay._

\- - -

Joseph is still owl-eyed, but his wide eyes are now hidden behind gold aviators which he only takes off to wipe at his face when he tears up too much. Everything else about him is different. He’s taller now, more muscular, with long dark hair like their mother’s pulled back into a ponytail tied low on his head. He smiles at Jacob like he can’t believe he’s real.

John is… different. Not what Jacob expected, although he realizes that they’re practically meeting as strangers. He’s full grown now, a good-looking twenty-something, with slicked back hair and a finely trimmed beard and clothes more expensive than anything Jacob’s ever owned. He’s a lawyer, Joseph explains, and he’s the one responsible for scenting Jacob’s trail. 

That’s not hard to do, Jacob says. He hasn’t showered in days.

Joseph doesn’t think that’s very funny, but when John smiles, Jacob knows for sure that it’s his little brother in there, rich boy bedamned. 

They catch up slowly, first in the shelter, then at a greasy diner in downtown Rome, then at a hotel room that John gets for Jacob so that he can reassemble himself into something almost human. Here, the showers aren’t timed and the shaving kit John gives him actually works and won’t fall apart after two uses. He puts on clothes that smell like fresh laundry and laughs when John promptly steals his old clothes and runs them out to the dumpster. Then, Joseph goes out and comes back with a drink carrier of fresh coffee and a box of doughnuts, and they spend a few hours talking.

He learns that Joseph had a soulmate, but she’s dead now. John has a mark, but no one on the other end yet. They find out Jacob has one, but no interest in meeting them.

He almost has to smile as Joseph frowns at this; the Seed brothers, just as discontent and dysfunctional as they’ve always been.

Then Joseph tells him about the Voice, about his mission, about all this godly crap and being led to convert people whether they want to be converted or not. Joseph says he understands that Jacob will be hesitant, after everything he’s been through.

No shit, says Jacob, and Joseph  _almost_  admonishes him for language. John laughs again. He laughs a lot, Jacob notices, but there’s rarely any actual emotion behind it.

Oh, but it’s all true. How else would Joseph find his brothers again? And doesn’t Jacob remember when Joseph told him about the Voice when they were kids? 

Jacob stares at him, at his massive bruise-colored eyes that look like they’re pleading for him to believe his brother. Then, he looks at John, who shrugs.

John says he believes him. He’s even helped rent a space in an old meat-packing plant for this new church Joseph has started. They already have a congregation, and they have space for one more Herald, this thing Joseph says is necessary for them to save the world or whatever.

It’s not like Jacob’s life can get any weirder, honestly.

He looks down at that pale blue line on his left arm, and down at the aesthetically torn knees of his new jeans, where below the feathered white threads, he knows there are two identical silver dollar scars on his knees from what he now believes are a few saved up childhood falls. He almost mentally asks his soulmate if this is alright, if they’d be fine with him running off with one brother who might be just barely clinging to reality, and another who is rich, damaged, and happy to go along for the ride.

He doesn’t ask, because this feels like something they don’t need to know about.

“Sure,” he says. When Joseph looks at him, almost puzzled that he didn’t have to push his point harder, Jacob just shakes his head and shrugs. “Anything for you. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.”

Joseph hugs him again, so tight that it almost hurts. He thanks Jacob repeatedly, saying he won’t regret it. He’ll never regret it. Eden’s Gate  _is_  going to succeed, because they’re all together like God planned.

Jacob never tells him that he doesn’t really believe him, but it feels like the right decision all the same.

\- - -

_So the Lord God called out to Adam, “Where are you?”_

_“I heard Your voice in the garden,” he replied, “and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”_

Jacob pretends he’s not hiding this. Not hiding the split in his mind and the things that he’s doing, when the Montana soil on his hands gets darker and damper until it runs dark red off his fingers. He pretends he’s not somehow ashamed of this, of the things they do. It’s for Joseph, after all. It’s what Joseph wants, what he says God commands, because God commands that all must convert, be it their decision or not. And God’s commanded Jacob to build Him an army, an army that carries Joseph’s word like a banner.

He pretends this is what he’s wanted all along, and he turns a blind eye to the silver and blue lines and splotches on his skin. They’ll never meet, he knows. They’ll never see this, this empire he builds on the bones of those that have failed. This is not Rome. This is designed to go on forever, beyond the end.

He’d like for them to be there when the world burns away like the impurities in a crucible. But that’s just not meant to be.

\- - -

Over the radio, John sounds like he’s about to laugh himself into a fucking aneurysm. Jacob can hear him practically wheezing as he tells Jacob that the Deputy, this Oakley girl that he remembers from the arrest in the church is headed towards the Whitetails in a fury. At first, he thinks John’s laughing because Deputy Oakley thinks she can do something to stop Eden’s Gate, but it quickly becomes clear that it’s not the case.

“ _I baptized her. Or, tried to,”_ John attempts to explain, but he dissolves into laughter again until Jacob just turns off the radio out of frustration.

He knows he’ll recognize her. There’s only a handful of people out there who match her description. He’s got it all written down in his office, prepared for wanted posters and broadcasted alerts and commands. Deputy Oakley (Pratt won’t give up her first name), late 20s or early 30s, height between 5′6″ and 5′9″, auburn hair, hazel eyes, dark tan skin. In the church, she had been pretty steadfast and serious, full of nervous energy. Now Jacob knows better, learning that she’s been blazing trails up one mountain and down another. She’s done action movie leaps out of moving helicopters, run around with a pet cougar, and by his security footage, has done stupid shit like hand stands on a cliff edge and stunt rides on a rickety ATV that’s probably as old as she is.

And her stupid laugh is on loop in his head, for all the times he’s eavesdropped on her radio calls with his brother and sister. She has this low, dry laugh that comes close to a witch cackle, but the more honest it is, the richer it is, even though a veil of static.

Of course, she hits the Whitetails like a torpedo. Eli takes to her, as predicted, which jump starts Jacob’s idea. Once she takes the lumber mill and rescues Jess Black (damnit, she would have been a choice recruit, but oh well), he decides to put the plan into action. 

And when he captures her and gets her in the chair, he finds out exactly why John was laughing.

In the darkness and shuttered light of the projector, he can’t make out many details about her. He knows Pratt’s put her in the chair while Jacob was preparing, so he hasn’t seen her up close himself. And in the dim light, with casts of gray and green and red, there’s not much to see other than an expression of masked horror and awe. Then, the picture on the projector changes to one of his favorites; one of the white wolves gnawing off a deer leg. The light’s bright enough that he sees–

He sees something impossible.

For the first time in years, he fumbles in his presentation. He freezes, staring, watching her with wide eyes. He sees the light of the projector illuminating patches and spatters of blue that go from her forehead down her temples and cheeks, spilling onto her neck and disappearing under the hem of her black parka before reappearing on the backs of her hands.

And she’s looking at him with the same expression of frozen wonder. Maybe the horror isn’t directed towards what he’s doing so much as what he looks like.

And he thinks. He  _really_  thinks.

He doesn’t remember any of those marks in the church, but the waters of the baptism might have washed a layer of make-up away. 

“Oh, fuck,” says the Deputy in a whisper.

He echoes her sentiment, and for the first time in ages, he has no idea what to do.

His soulmate is strapped into one of his chairs, ready for a round of conditioning. His soulmate, the one he’s spoken to through scars, apologized to, begged forgiveness from when things got bad, and mentally hid things from, is sitting in front of him as his biggest potential enemy.

 _Sometimes it takes a little while,_  his mother had said. Give or take two decades or so.

 _They don’t wash off,_  she said. No, but you can hide them with make-up or scar them over so bad that they disappear.

 _Sorry, sorry, sorry,_  he had said. And suddenly, he wants to say it again.

Instead, he clears his throat as the projector clicks and shows a deer skull against a snowy background. “Pratt,” he says, and he hears the man grunt behind him. “Take Deputy Oakley to 3-A. We need to have a talk.”

He knows Pratt hesitates, and all it takes is one heavy step toward him to send the man scurrying over to his coworker, quickly undoing the straps. He helps her stand, and she does so on legs that don’t quite hold her up right. When she takes one step and nearly falls, Jacob feels himself lurch forward on the instinct to catch her. He only just stops himself when Pratt catches her and assures her that she’s going to be fine. 

Jacob should be the one doing that. He should be–

He stiffens. “Get moving,” he barks, and Pratt almost drags her out of the room.

The other two Whitetails in the room stare at him as the deer skull is projected over him. He breathes heavy, thinking.  _Always_  thinking.

And suddenly, he catches that crest of thought that he only felt in juvie, when he was young and still had some optimistic bone that hadn’t been shattered yet. He sees potential there, a future that doesn’t end with either of them dead, or Joseph’s vision ruined. He sees something like  _promise_ , like the possibility of having a right hand that can strike as quick and hard as he needs. Someone beside him, someone strong and as of yet unable to really be defeated. He sees his soulmate there, where soulmates should be, this balance on the other end of his scale that’s always been tilted and askew.

She’s seen his pain on her skin, and he’s seen hers. He can use this. He can bring them together and make a partnership and cull the weak in their pack with one of the strongest by his side.

And as he continues his presentation to the hapless Whitetails, who will eventually become the Deputy’s first test, he thinks about the girl in the other room with the ink-blue marks of his scars on her skin. He thinks of the future they can make.

He has no idea that she’s going to fight him every step of the way.


	2. Collared (Submissive!Jacob)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheeeeeeze hey look i'm posting something for the first time in ages. this was kind of sort of a prompt i received plus just a need i had to watch jacob getting rekt. okay bye love ya.
> 
> (warnings/kinks for this include submissive!jacob, pegging, BDSM lite, collars, leashes, subspace, and a lil bit of aftercare at the end. safe, sane, and consensual compliant! :D)

If there’s such thing as Walmart clearance rack BDSM, Cody’s sure that they’re doing it. She has an actual dog leash wrapped around her fist, which she found hanging up on a coat rack at a cabin with no dog in sight. And the razor-tipped points of the bed springs of a decades-old fold out couch are digging into her knees, rhythmically stabbing at her with every good thrust she makes. Hell, even the couch itself is almost distracting and just hammering the point home of how bizarre all of this is, as every time she looks up, she’s faced with brown and mustard yellow plaid fabric.  
  
_Almost_ distracting is the key term, because it would take Joseph’s oft-mentioned apocalypse to distract her from the fact that she has a strap-on deep in Jacob Seed’s ass. The leash is clipped to a leather collar that would fit a bullmastiff; the only thing that would fit Jacob’s neck. Every few thrusts, Jacob drops his head, causing Cody to jerk back on the leash to bring him back to attention, which she mostly does to revel in the fact that she has any control over him in the first place.  
  
Seriously, it’s like _artwork_ to watch his back while she fucks him. The waxy gold light of the lamp over their heads does wonders to his freckles and scars, and illuminates the sweat that’s cast over his skin, some pooling at the dip near his tailbone. Even his hair is damp with sweat, which Cody only knows because she’s gripped it once to yank him back so hard that his only choice was to sit up on his knees, his head lolling back against her shoulder. Now, she’s entertained by watching the damp curl at the front rhythmically tap his forehead. Or, she’s only half-entertained, because most of her entertainment comes from watching the muscles in his back tense and relax.  
  
She actually isn’t sure if she’s found his prostate, because obviously it isn’t as easy as groping for a lightswitch in the dark the way that all her old erotica novels would have led her to believe. Yes, she fingered him during prep, but he didn’t give the lightning-and-fireworks reaction that she expected, and everything in his ass just felt like... an ass. There’s only so many pretty words out there to describe a not very pretty part of general anatomy, especially when she’s trying to stretch it with three fingers.  
  
Regardless, and without thinking on it too much more than she has to, he’s reacting as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself, like his body has gone rogue and all that self control he’s so proud of is left back on the bathroom floor with the rest of his clothing.  
  
Honestly, neither of them really know what they’re doing. It’s bad enough that they’re fucking in a cabin that was last updated circa 1974, surrounded by furniture that reeks of mothballs and the entire decoration scheme favoring colors like salmon and avocado. But Cody’s as clueless as she can be, going mostly by what she’s carefully observed through porn and, again, really bad erotica novels. Her strap-on education is only a little bit thorough, remembered through bits and pieces of her college experience. To date, though, she’s never actually pegged a guy, let alone one built like a bison (coincidentally, he also sounds like one if she gets him just right), so she’s left wondering if any part of this is correct.  
  
Not like Jacob seems to mind, though. Actually, he doesn’t mind as much as she thought he would. With the collar on, it’s like some kind of weird sex miracle, leading Cody to think that maybe Jacob Seed has always carried a submission kink, but was just a little too much of a proud dom-type to admit it. He bows under her hand, twists up against her when she pulls the leash again. Watching all of this happen is probably the closest thing to a religious experience that she’s had while being near Eden’s Gate.  
  
“Wonder what your followers would say if they saw you like this,” Cody hears herself saying, and holy _fuck,_ she most definitely is not in control of the smirk curling her lips. She feels like goddamn Cruella de Vil right now and there’s nothing she can do about it, let alone reel in her dirty talk.  
  
Jacob groans like he’s in agony, but she sees him turn his head enough to watch a full on blush form on his face, weaving around the bruise-colored scars and rashes. Experimentally, she tugs on the leash to get him to actually look at her, and either the low lightning of the flickering cabin lamp is playing tricks on her, or his pupils are fucking _huge_.  
  
“ _Oh,_ ” she says,  _whispers_ , clearly delighted. She adjusts her weight on her knees—mindful of the springs—in order to find a better angle. With the free hand not holding the leash, she reaches up and runs one finger down the divot of his spine. There, she feels the planed edge of muscle meeting in a valley with one rivulet of sweat cascading downward. He shudders, and she can’t tell if it’s from her thrusting, touching his back, or both.  
  
Still experimenting, she lets her free hand flatten against his back, feeling how hot his skin is. Then, she runs it down over his left hip, delighting in the musculature, and minding the mottled network of burn scars that give his skin an interesting texture, if not one hell of a backstory. He doesn’t seem to care much about that, especially when her hand curves over his hip, and slides downward enough that her fingers just brush his cock.  
  
The strangled-sounding, “ _Fuck_ ,” is so worth it.  
  
Cody grins and doesn’t do much other than gently run her fingers around the junction of his cock and groin. She knows how hard he is—  _feels_ it, even though she’s not touching him directly. “You want me to?” she asks, not specifying. She doesn’t have to.  
  
And hell _yes_ , she wants to hear him beg. That’s like a goddamn life achievement.  
  
Jacob makes another strange sound that’s like a mimic of human speech from an animal. It’s a wounded groan, playing at syllables, but losing them rapidly. In response to that, he leans down against the strain of the leash so that his forehead nearly touches the pillow in front of him.  
  
“Oh, absolutely not,” Cody says pleasantly, giving the leash yet another sharp tug to get him to raise up. He falls into the movement so easily, makes it almost naturally in rhythm with her thrusting. “You want something, you have to _ask,_ Jake.”  
  
Either the shortened name throws him off guard or the whole damn situation does. What ever it is, Jacob makes this glorious punched-out pain sound, and he shudders again.  
  
But he doesn’t reply, and Cody can’t have that.  
  
She stills her hips, and Jacob casts a look over his shoulder, brows furrowed, dilated pupils fixed on her face like she’s to blame for every problem he’s had. “No— Fuck— Why did you _stop?_ ” he asks, his voice hoarse and ragged.  
  
She shrugs, but her grin doesn’t drop so much as a half inch. “You didn’t do what I said.”  
  
He stares, unbelieving, or maybe just not comprehending. “I didn’t—” He cuts himself off, and Cody thinks he might need a little bit of help to find his words again, so her hand moves so that her nails _just_ brush over his shaft. He grunts, and goes through this single short spasm that makes him screw his eyes shut and drop his head.  
  
“You want me to fuck you or do you want me to go?” Cody asks innocently, trailing her nails up and down his cock. “Or do you just have trouble asking?”  
  
“I don’t...” He draws in a deep breath through his nose, lets it out slowly, and opens his eyes again. “I want you to,” he says.  
  
“That’s not a nice way to ask,” Cody replies, keeping her tone pleasant. She knows what he’s having a problem with, and she’s noticed how his form of asking is turning the question around so it almost sounds like a demand. It doesn’t take a licensed psychologist to realize he has issues with control, and that ceding it isn’t easy. But that’s what she’s there for, even if neither of them have said as much.  
  
That in mind, she pulls her silicone cock out of his ass, which earns her an _amazing_ groan (she’ll store that away for some dark and restless night in the future). She slackens the leash enough to allow for some movement, and lifts her free hand to push at his shoulder, maneuvering him to roll onto his back.  
  
To _submit._  
  
Naturally, Jacob doesn’t go easily. That much she expected, but Cody’s also learning the beautiful benefits of the collar. She reaches up, leash in hand, and hooks two fingers through it, gently scraping the mottled skin at his throat before she tugs just enough to get him to look at her. “On your back, Jake,” she says.  
  
Not a question; a command.  
  
He stares at her for a long moment, but all it takes is one more suggesting tug on the collar to get him to do exactly what she wants. He rolls onto his back, adjusting himself so his head is on the pillow. He keeps his eyes on her the entire time, and there’s that whole predator-prey dichotomy that she keeps in mind whenever they so much as communicate. Even on the radio, she’s always gotten the sensation of him breathing down the back of her neck, watching and waiting for her to slip up so he could strike.  
  
It’s taken a lot of jockeying to get him to this point, to realize that in the great and wide land of animal symbolism, they’re in the same order.  
  
She takes a moment to etch how he looks to memory, because there are either few people or none at all who have seen him like this, sprawled on his back, legs open, cock a hard dark line jutting up against his left hip. His mouth is slightly open as he works to breathe. His eyes are half-lidded but still fixed on her, unmoving and unflinching, and just as unnerving as they are even when he’s going through the motions of hunting her down. She takes in all of his scars, every feature that’s normally hidden under layers of clothing, out of sight although not necessarily from shame. There’s one patch of scar tissue, knotted and silver with age, that she chooses to focus on. If he has sensation there, she’s not completely sure; but when she runs her fingers over it, he certainly acts like he does.  
  
“Wanna try again?” she asks, stroking the scars like he’s a pet that needs soothing.  
  
Jacob nods.  
  
“Then tell me what you want. In like, big grown-up words, though.”  
  
He glares a little, and she’ll give him that without repercussion. All it takes is a little tug to the collar to get him sinking back down into the ancient mattress. “I want you to— Ah, fuck.” He fights with the words for a moment, but all Cody has to do is flatten her hand out again, running her palm over the scars, back down to the trail of copper hair leading down to his cock. “Fuck me,” he says at last, and he manages to make both words sound like they’ve been ripped from him.  
  
“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”  
  
“Jesus Christ— Okay, just, _fuck me_. That’s what I want you to do. I want you to fuck me as hard as you fuckin’ can and I don’t care how you do it,” he snarls. “What, do you want me to call you _Mistress_ next?”  
  
Cody laughs, already leaning over him and pressing the head of her strap-on against his ass, brushing it up and down against the lube that’s already there. “I wouldn’t say no,” she says, and that’s all she gets out before she pushes back into him. She’s not a total idiot about it, at least, since she inches rather than outright thrusts like they’re reenacting some terrible porn. Even so, one might _think_ that’s what she does, judging by the myriad of sounds Jacob makes in reply.  
  
It’s so goddamn satisfying to watch his eyes flutter shut, to see his head tilt back so that his neck is exposed. She sees the lines of flexing sinew under his skin, and the muted light of the cabin does some interesting and frankly lovely things to his scars, to the rashes that warp his features. When she thrusts all the way in, to the point that she feels the tackiness of the lube on her own hips, she feels like it’s easier to ignore since all of her focus is on Jacob’s reactions.  
  
Every thrust after that pulls him deeper and deeper into _something._ She’s sure there’s a word out there for it, for the way his eyes seem to lose focus, for how his words stutter into silence. This time, when she pulls on the leash, it’s like he’s tied up to it like a marionette, following the movement with perfect obedience. And then when she curls her hand around his cock, he’s beyond all comprehension.  
  
Then again, so is Cody. At least she has the benefit of forming words, however jumbled and mindless they are.  
  
“I wish you could see yourself,” she says, fisting his cock in fluid, practiced strokes. “I wish you could see what I see.”  
  
His reply is a chest-deep rumble of sound. His eyes find hers for a moment before closing again, and his body only twists a bit as she presses her thumb against the underside of the head of his cock, pressing against it and drawing her grip upward like she can coax his orgasm from it.  
  
“You’d do anything I want, huh?” She leans forward enough to press her forehead to his, ignoring the gross slide of sweat and lord knows what else that runs between their skin. She can smell _him_ and all that entails, for better or worse. He just smells human; not something beyond, not animal. It’s all human scent, of sweat and sex and three days of holing up in a cabin. “You’re not a Herald right now. You’re not the _Soldier_ , not a wolf,” she says, lips nearly touching his parted ones. “You’re _mine_ now, aren’t you?”  
  
He nods. God, he doesn’t even think about it. It just happens.  
  
It’s like a fucking drug for Cody’s ego, with him underneath her, his calloused hands now raised and trying to find some part of her worth holding onto. He settles on the divots of her waist, thumbs resting on the top ridges of her hips. Cody gets the idea that he’s not trying to hold her steady as much as he’s trying to hold _himself_ , to give himself an anchor.  
  
Her thrusts and her strokes alternate, pulling out of his ass as she strokes upward on his cock, and reversing both motions at the same time. Jacob groans and tilts his head up, eyes flickering open and casting about in delirium. She can feel him spasm and jerk, watches his heart flutter in his throat, hears and watches him breathe and how he struggles to do it right.  
  
She lets go of the leash so she can lay down on top of him, her hand still moving between their bodies, but her other elbow is propped beside his head to support her weight. Her fingers go over his scalp, up to his hair, even more soaked with sweat than it was before. “If I told you to ask me if you could come, would you?” she asks, honestly curious.  
  
“Ye— _Yes,_ ” he grinds out.  
  
“And if I stopped right now,” she says, and smiles when she feels him jerk at her words like she’s already gone ahead and made the decision. “If I stopped and told you the only way I would keep going is if you ate me out?”  
  
“I would.”  
  
Cody shivers at how easily he says it, how he all but bows into her, arching up against her body. It’s _not_ Jacob, but it also _is._ There’s no part of him beneath her now that she didn’t know was there to begin with, even if it was only in the form of potential.  
  
“And if... If I told you to fuck yourself, to—”  
  
“ _Yes,_ ” he says, _gasps._ He doesn’t even wait for the rest of the sentence.  
  
She wants to say something stupid, to ask if he’d do absolutely ridiculous shit just to see if it’s possible. But at the same time, she knows better. At this one rare moment, he trusts her fully and completely, even if she’s never really returned the favor before. And in an hour or so, the situation might be completely different. In twenty-four hours, they could be back to trying to kill each other.  
  
Right then, though, he’s totally at her mercy and he knows it. _She_ knows it. She knows all she would have to do is say a word and he’d be on his knees for her, and if that’s not a power trip, then she doesn’t know the term as much as she thought she did.  
  
Oh. _Subspace_. That was the word she was looking for. It’s been tucked in that college-age box in the back of her head for so long, and not even dusted off the first time she did anything remotely sexual with Jacob, who seemed more capable of putting her into it rather than the other way around. She could parse all of this out, considering the _how_ s and _why_ s of where they are and what they’re doing, but to be honest, she doesn’t have the time, coherency, or need while Jacob’s whimpering underneath her.  
  
_Whimpering_. She’s going to commit that sound to memory for as long as she’s able.  
  
Cody kisses him then, as full and passionate as she pleases. She revels in the warmth and wetness of his lips, the way he opens his mouth against hers, ready and vulnerable in every way possible. Her one hand still stroking his cock, the other gently running through his sweat-soaked hair, Cody angles her next thrust which promptly causes him to gasp against her lips. She smiles against him before tilting her head back enough to make eye contact, his eyes just haze-blue crescent under his bruised eyelids.  
  
“If I told you to come,” she starts, rolling her hips against his. She delights in how he goes completely boneless against her.  
  
He nods. He can’t even speak.  
  
Once more, she kisses him. It’s gentle, more like something exchanged in passing in the morning after, and it’s _perfect._  
  
“Do it,” she says, her mouth now by his left ear. She kisses the ridge of his temple before speaking again, commanding him in a voice that would rival his for fierce softness. “Come for me.”  
  
Jacob does.  
  
He curls in on himself as much as he’s physically able, his muscles twitching and spasming, eyes closed tightly, mouth agape as he soundlessly carries through what must be one hell of an orgasm. She feels him spend on her hand over and over again, until her strokes become slippery and one of his hands weakly tries to come up to get her to stop. Cody allows it, letting him go before wiping her hand off on the cheap flannel blanket. Then, as gently as she can, she pulls the strap-on out of him before rolling on to her back, shimmying out of it and dropping it off the edge of the fold-out.  
  
All that’s left is their panting, Jacob’s being chased with a low wheeze. His eyes are half-lidded, gazing up at nothing in particular while his chest still heaves and his lower abdomen is streaked with his come. Cody knows without having to ask that he’s going to need a minute before she can even ask if he wants to get up or take a shower; instead, she happily curls up beside him, kissing his cheek and wrapping an arm around his waist.  
  
“You did so good,” she whispers to him. She doesn’t actually know the right words to say for aftercare, let alone to someone like him. “You were amazing, Jake.”  
  
Apparently it’s good enough, because his eyes slip shut and he sighs, turning just enough to face her a bit better. Cody smiles and rests her cheek on his shoulder, watching the amber light catching on the ring of the collar. She reaches up to run one finger along the upper edge of it, and almost laughs when she hears him hum appreciatively.  
  
If she knew how much he would have liked it, she would have put one on him ages ago.


	3. Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [flings this at 400 mph to cope with my new dawn feelings]

“Do you really think I could ever replace you?” Cody asks.

She sits on the edge of her bed, staring down at the gray crust of mud on the tips of her boots, tapping them together in a slow rhythm. Her room is mostly quiet, save for the  _tick-tick-tick_ ing of the mantle clock and the shuddering sigh of the wind on the corrugated steel walls. It’s so quiet that she’s sure she can hear her own heartbeat.

“You could,” he says. 

His voice is soft–controlled. He sounds thoughtful. 

“It’s not that easy.”

She hears the dry wheeze of his laughter; though it’s little more than a short rush of air, clipped at the end. “I taught you better than that,” he replies. “People are disposable. Life’s transient. Doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme.”

Cody shrugs and rests her hands between her knees, palms facing each other. She presses her knees together, sandwiching her hands, wiggling her fingers experimentally. “And you know I never bought that,” she says.

Quiet. Pure, breathless, _dead_ quiet.

“I know,” Jacob sighs. “Never could get things to stick with you.”

She smiles as she stares at the floor. Flecks of mud fall from her boots in tiny chips and form dirty half-crescents on the worn pink rug. “I thought you liked that about me.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And this isn’t sticking either. It’s not like I can just switch you out for someone new, y’know?” Cody says. “Like, ‘Hey, I’m really hurtin’ over my maybe-but-not-quite-ex-it-was-complicated and he just so happened to be the Father’s older brother. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Anyway, wanna fuck so I can forget?’“

He snorts. “Eloquent.”

“That’s how it’d go, though.”

He might move somewhere else in the room, or it could be the enterprising wind finding a nice nook to form a draft. She doesn’t look up to check. 

“It’s been a long time,” he says. He sounds close, his voice surfacing the silence right behind her head. Part of her expects the bed to dip on his side in a feeling that’s like muscle memory. 

“Mhmm.”

“Things didn’t go to plan, and then they did. You were exactly where you needed to be.”

“Depends on who you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking anyone. I’m telling you.”

Her smile fades, and her throat tightens. Honestly, at this point, she’s sick of crying over it. “That’s all you ever do. All you ever  _did._ ”

“Not at the end,” he reminds her.

She presses her hands tighter in between her knees, until her palms ache. It helps, she thinks. Less of a chance that she can feel that phantom blood running tributaries between her fingers, forming rivers over the backs of her hands.

“I didn’t want it to go the way it did,” she says stiffly. “I feel like I’ve told you that a million times.”

“Told me. Sure.”

“Through all your damn monologuing and– And, god _damnit.”_ She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to cut off the burn. “You didn’t need to die for that shit. You didn’t need to die for  _him._ And now he’s out there doing god only knows what! We weren’t happy, Jake. We never were going to be; I get that. But it could’ve been different.”

Silence. Tomb-like, crypt-like, grave-like; the kind that follows a man dying on a rock in the sun, breathing out his last and falling into the quiet. The kind that sits with a woman as she stares, stunned, her hands slick-red with his blood, dog tags clattering in her trembling hands before she can will them to keep still. Silence that only the dead can maintain.

They never said they loved each other. Hell, neither of them said ‘love’ in any context except to refer to other people, and that was decidedly on Cody’s side of the court. They were angry, spiteful, constantly clawing at each other like two wolves from differing packs. There was no secret foothold to find that would lead to triumph over one another—they were evenly matched, which may have been the only way they were matched at all.  
  
At worst, they hated each other; at best, it couldn’t be defined. But never,  _never_  did they call it love.

He doesn’t say anything. He shouldn’t, anyway, because Jacob Seed’s been dead for well over a decade, and Cody shouldn’t hear him at all. His dog tags are hidden under her shirt, and no one who doesn’t know her well would know who they belonged to. That’s all that remains. That’s all that should have ever remained.

Then, he says, “I know.” He touches her shoulder, and at the same time, he doesn’t—the dead can’t touch, after all. “If it’s all the same to you, I couldn’t replace you either.”

It takes her a moment to speak, her eyes cinched shut, her throat aching. Still, she smiles. Once, that was all she ever did, even in the worst scenarios.

“Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried,” she croaks out.

“And I tried.” A gentle pressure, pressed to the back of her head, and gone in a breath. 

All of it, gone. Except for her, the room is empty. Silent, save for the creaks, ticks, and groans of the wind. Cody sits in the vacuum that only a ghost can leave.


	4. Missed Shots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [flings this one at _600 mph_ ]
> 
> this one's super short but tbh i have a backlog of fics for them and this is one my favorites. <3

It’s embarrassing, the amount of times that Deputy Oakley’s been in Jacob’s scope. Eight times now, he’s been lined right up with the perfect shot.  _Eight times_  he could have been rid of the exact problem that’s been plaguing the Project like the most glitter-covered pestilence cloud. Now, with the ninth time, he starts to realize the enormity of his eight mistakes.

“ _Oooh, Mr. Seed. Are you checking me out?”_ Her voice is static sing-song over the radio, and he watches through the fish eye of the scope as she waves at him from her spot on the tree stand. 

Damnit.

In part, he supposes he only has himself to blame. He’s had multiple chances to take the shot, and an enormous red sniper rifle isn’t inconspicuous in thick tree cover. So, there he is, highly visible and in the sight of the woman that he’s failed to kill almost ten damn times. 

“ _Jaaaaake. You can’t ignoooore meeeeee. I won’t leeeeeet yooooooou!”_ she croons over the speaker.

“Fuckin’–” He cuts himself off by pulling the radio up from his belt. He’s half-tempted to turn it off completely, but she has a terrible habit of getting a rise out of him and childish as it may be, he’s inclined to spite her. Instead, he keys the radio with more force than necessary. “Deputy,” he growls.

In the scope, she grins at him. “ _Morning, sunshine! Nice day for a walk in the woods, huh?”_

Then, he sees something peculiar. Granted, Deputy Oakley is peculiar in every concept, but she’s not often seen in desert standard camo; she’s too proud of her plumage for that. He squints and adjusts the scope, before realizing–

“Is that my  _shirt?”_

Her grin is almost blinding through the scope. “ _Ten-four!”_  she confirms, loud enough that he swears he can hear it even without the radio. Then, she does a sort of awkward sitting curtsy, flaring the jacket out at her sides. “ _I think I look pretty darn cute, don’t you?”_

“Dep–”

 _“I even washed it! I mean, Jacob, darling, honeybunch, light of my life! I adore you and I know our wedding is going to be a_ _springtime_ _dream, but you need to learn how to do your laundry.”_

He’s going to make the ninth shot count. He has no choice.

He should also know better.

She abruptly stands up, like she’s somehow aware that he’s seriously considering cutting this stupid game off once and for all. After a dramatic twirl, she hooks one thumb through the belt loop of her shorts and pulls them down about an inch on one side, revealing a sliver of bright red fabric.

Wait.

“ _Don’t worry,”_ she says. “ _I washed these in three separate cycles, on hot and then cold. You could probably eat dinner out of ‘em. I mean, I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s possible!”_

Deputy Oakley is wearing his goddamn boxers, and he has no idea how she got them.

He doesn’t make that ninth shot, if only because this woman has learned the fine art of stunning him with such precision that he can’t do much but gawk like a turkey at her. 

“ _You could probably even eat m–”_

Jacob turns off his radio, and decides that the tenth missed shot is going to have to wait for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


End file.
